#prmh

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explanation of my tag commentary on prmh

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possibly interesting oc question: how would your ocs describe/label their own ideological positions? (if they label them at all)

oooh thank you! i appreciate it. for the prmh kids, what labels they'd use... (i say kids. some of these bitches are 40)

Ellie: says "anarchist" or "leftist". This is correct basically

Reagan: also says "leftist" but if someone is specifically asking for details would say marxist or MLM. white maoist jokes go here

Isaiah: probably depends on who he's talking to but i think he says marxist (pretentious)

Ivy: i don't think she really talks about politics, which sounds ridiculous because to us the viewers she is clearly the law-and-order authoritarian type. Like obviously she hates the radicals but she sees that as "obvious" yknow?? It is normal to hate communists <- ivy's political views. her views are return to order

Lucian: would self-describe as libertarian but imo this is just wrong. he and ivy should be described as right-wing though... more specifically, hard to say labels are vague and this is the future so political coalitions have shifted somewhat.

bonus round (some of the more minor characters)

Liam: if asked would describe himself as moderate, and i think that is fairly accurate but it's kind of more like "not politically engaged"

Lila: Describes herself as progressive and I think I can say this is objectively false. But like, is she "a liberal"? In a sense yes. Would she vote for the Democrats? like i think in the 2024 election she woulda voted for Kamala yeah but other times it probably depends. status quo supporter qua none

Phoenix: rationalist NRX etc. yes i do think they would self-describe as a rationalist. i love phoenix

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4 for PRMH

4 is SO relevant to prmh thank you you know me well...

4. In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts? 

PRMH is very About New Jersey (even if it's about future New Jersey) so probably one of the central themes is the class stuff. everything's about money! Lucian does what he does because, originally, he didn't have money to do better. Ellie and Liam grew up reasonably middle class but Liam (the younger of the two) "sold out" because as things got worse and inequality pulled the rich and everyone else further apart he wanted to stay on the good side, and Ellie consciously refused that. Reagan and Isaiah are both terrorists (I say that affectionately but they are) but Reagan grew up in middle of nowhere ass pine barrens south jersey and Isaiah is from Princeton so even though they are both leftists they have different issues they prioritize and that causes friction between them sometimes. it all affects them.

The racial aspect is 100% part of it too, the whole thing takes place in a racially diverse area (future-Newark) and it comes up repeatedly. Isaiah is wrongly believed to have been involved in a robbery because an algorithm misidentified his face as someone else's, implied to be because he's black. Several of the kids Reagan takes care of don't speak much English (if any at all) and she doesn't speak basically any Spanish so they are basically relying on other children as translator until they can work this out. Lucian's issues about being half Chinese and therefore never getting the respect white men do are well known.

Sorry for going on so long but yes The place IS the story it's ABOUT the place and the various ways in which it makes you. About the choices you make to respond to circumstances. "we are all products of our environment"-core

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4 12 14 for Ivy 🫶

yaaaay. of COURSE you would ask about Ivy. you have a problem :) <3

4. In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts? 

i will never tire of answering this one. definitely the two topics (socioeconomic class and race) mentioned in the PRMH overall answer to this same question, but how she's seen as a woman is a big part of it too. she is... pretty fucking masc but way more in her bearing than in her appearance. she doesn't wear particularly masculine clothes, and is curvy and has big tits and will show that off. (in addition to being muscular-- the muscle isn't the visible cut kind, god forbid anyone draw her with abs.) she wears reasonably conventional, "safe" makeup. sorry to disappoint the fans but ivy tsang DOES shave her pits. BUT the patterns of her speech, the way she moves and walks, the way she interfaces with the world is masculine. of course she ran into issues with this especially when she was younger but she's unusually hard-headed and unusually violent and they could not harass it out of her. she's gotten a lot of shit at a lot of jobs for being a woman. especially because she was a cop (of a sort. i say cop but it's like private security in a world where there are no cops) and they were a real boys club. but some of the shit she gets away with is because she is able to at least somewhat pass herself off as "most likely not a violent predator because she's a cis woman." to be clear in real life it should be considered sexual assault to use her cybernetic neuralink ass situation to coerce someone-- someone who is her subordinate at work!!-- to sleep with her. but this is fiction. anyway, jail

12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)? 

im so bad at drawing and ive tried to draw her a few times. i know it takes practice but It's Hard. omii's art of her is wonderful tho. heres my old one of her (left) plus a way cooler one omii did (right) :3

14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be? 

one, so tough as nails physically it should border on unrealistic she could get shoved down a flight of concrete stairs and walk it off

two, that she's a sadist. and genuinely likes making other people uncomfortable. she doesn't do it all the time because being an asshole doesn't win friends, you've gotta be practical. but if she sees a way to do it with no repercussions? look, she's not a total sociopath she has a few people she genuinely cares about. but outside of that circle it's pretty grim.

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request: people who are into any kind of police, military, or similar uniform in a horny way please mention a uniform you find particularly hot in this post's replies, or an ask if you want to be anonymous. real or fictional

i want to finally give (long-time prmh OC/Evil Woman From My Short Stories) Ivy an actual uniform design for her pre-canon private-security-debt-collector era, and also I just think the Passaic cops need a fun look for the neofeudalist company town cyberpunk future.

i seek inspiration from people who unfortunately think she is kind of hot for waiting to arrest a vandal who kept messing with their ads until they did something bad enough to justify a more serious punishment, and then getting annoyed and jealous when somebody else caught them first because she had really been looking forward to getting to use the cybernetics to compel them to talk abt their other little commie friends. the half-puppeting is the horror! fighting for the ability to control their own behavior and managing to wrestle it back a third of the time but it isn't enough. they can't tell which thoughts are theirs. they know they wanted to talk to Ivy-- or they can't fully read the the flickers of the sense that they didn't want to... cool concrete of the floor against their legs feels like sensory overwhelm, something buzzing in the pit of their stomach... look she just wanted to see their pretty face finally tip over from "clawing-at-eye-sockets agony of failing to resist like scrabbling for a grip at the edge of a cliff" to "soft-eyed perfect rewritable vessel". of course she's mad someone got to it before her have you ever had someone else eat the lunch you brought

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wanted to reblog post about characters being sincerely and consistently good and kind despite the horrors they've endured by tagging Reagan PRMH, as an intentional contrast with Ivy (similar in personality in certain ways, and both women of exceptional fortitude, but Ivy is selfish where Reagan is compassionate). but tbh I think it's more than a little complicated and while she has shown incredible kindness and strength in caring for children with no one else to turn to, even difficult, angry, violent children who are healing from trauma, she is also quite literally a murderer, so I guess it's kind of complicated. she cares very much about doing the right thing and follows through, I just disagree with her idea of the right thing sometimes. But is she a type of Unbreakable Dedication to Kindness, yes, and she would do anything for the community kids she protects.

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Lucian is most concisely explained by that tweet that's like "I did what I had to to survive. and then I did a bunch of other stuff I felt like doing LOL." By the time canon takes place he has long since crossed the line of what's necessary out of desperation and self-defense. It's just a question of where you decide to draw that line. At a point it becomes self-reinforcing. When you alienate everyone with your obsession with no one being able to hurt you anymore you just keep justifying more harm. not to enneagrampost but he's got such classic type 8 personality flaws. You think of what he could have been if things were different. And that doesn't absolve him of blame-- you think about what he could have been if he were brave enough to be vulnerable. If he was able to choose healing instead of going further down his path. It takes guts to admit a mistake and guts to rely on others. And ultimately he couldn't!

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prev really ellie/reagan/isaiah are all slightly different even if they are in the same category.

ellie (here due to present desperation and getting swept up into it by social pressures but not the kind of person who Reads Leftist Theory. not because she is stupid! but because that's not a particular interest of hers. she believes in it she doesnt need to read Capital.)

vs reagan (very sincere theory-reader but also absolute unflinching zealot. does kill people and also is the person who raises the community's kids. like let me make it clear she is definitionally a terrorist. well all of them are but especially her!)

vs isaiah (also a theory-reader but flinches from murder. he is not a coward. but he doesn't want anyone to have to die. of course he endorses what Reagan is doing. but he doesn't want to endorse it.)